Novel Ice Cream Dispenser

SODA jerkers and confectioners who are called on to “dish up” ice cream cones will appreciate the labor-saving features of a new tray which holds the cones in such a manner that both hands are free for the filling operation. Aside from its time-saving aspect, the tray permits the salesman to pause in his work of filling the cones in case he is called on to serve a rush customer.

The section containing the holes which hold the cones fits over a wooden tray base, so that the device comes in two parts. Advertising copy for ice cream manufacturers can be imprinted on the holders.

Sun Supplies Heat For This House
OLD SOL provides the heat for the hot water system in this new sun laboratory, recently completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on using the sun rays for house heating and power generation. The man on the roof is Dr. Byron B. Woertz, research assistant, who is inspecting energy collectors, or “heat traps,” in which circulating water is heated by sunlight and stored in a large basement tank for future use.

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Corner Windows Feature of New Gotham Skyscraper

A NEW step in office building construction has been marked with the completion of a new 34-story skyscraper in New York City. The most noteworthy feature of the building is that the supporting steel framework does not extend to the corners of the structure, these corners being left entirely clear, and windows being placed at each floor with only a thin metal window sash at the angle. The additional light thus available in the corner offices makes these suites desirable especially in the upper stories beyond reach of street noises.

Plastic Oven is the latest use of the wonder synthetic. It offers considerable advantages for the housewife, chiefly in reducing possibility of burnt steaks, roasts, cakes, etc. Model shown is British.

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Haywire House

By R.W.K

I’VE been there, I’ve seen, I’ve taken pictures—but I still don’t see how such things are possible.

The Editors of MI heard some wild stories about a place called the House of Mystery. What stories! People go around ten degrees off the vertical! A golf ball thrown straight up comes down several inches to one side! A bottle rolls uphill! A broom stands by itself—at an angle to the floor! People grow taller or shorter, depending on where they stand! All this happens in Oregon, in a peculiar area called the Oregon Vortex, a circle, or rather a sphere, exactly 165 feet 4-1/2 inches in diameter up in the Gold Hill country!

The Editors, always hot after new science angles but suspecting trickery,, arranged that I be sent up after the . story. Right off, I’d better say I’m not a trained scientific writer at all, but a photographer. I got the assignment because I wasn’t born yesterday and because I know my camera angles. They figured if there was any optical trickery involved I’d catch it.

I’ll say right here that the House of Mystery is still a house of mystery to me.

I was plenty skeptical when I arrived. Right away John Litster, owner of the works, looked me in the eye. “Keep alert here,” he warned. “You’ll need all your skill. I won’t promise that your pictures will come out. You may have to come back several times.”

I certainly tried to be alert.

First he took me to a place where there were two concrete blocks a couple of feet apart, separated by a line. The line, he said, marked the edge of the Vortex, one block being outside and one in. He stood me on one block and himself stood on the other.

“Now, sight along a line level with your eyes and see what part of my face comes into view,” he directed. I did it, and found myself looking at the top of his head. I was the taller one.

“Now let’s swap positions,” he said. We did that—and now I found myself looking squarely into his eyes! I couldn’t help myself! I was amazed! He was taller! I tried it again. I experimented. The concrete blocks were level and even with each other in the ground!

^While I was trying to fathom the secret, a dozen tourists gathered to be token through the House, and I joined them. As we stood outside the Screwy Circle, Litster told us to cross over carefully, then stop and stand perfectly still, and we’d actually feel the change of balance. We did it. He was right! It were as though a strong wind were blowing us over toward magnetic north! We were to remain at this odd angle, sometimes greater than 10 degrees, during all our stay.

After this we were led through a rickety gate in a high board fence, and inside found ourselves in a small yard flanked on one side by the House of Mystery itself, left just as it had fallen during an earth slide many years ago. The crooked doorway captured our eyes. One elderly woman, livid with fear, refused to go a step farther.

At the doorway our guide told us to watch our balance carefully when entering because we could very easily fall up! At this advice a few ladies giggled and one old gent smiled and expertly arced a gob of tobacco juice between two rotting boards. But when we filed in we found he spoke the truth! The floor was at an angle, and standing was made difficult by the pull of some mysterious force!

In the House the experiments began. A girl was told to push a 28-pound weight, suspended from the ceiling, in a certain direction. She did it with ease. But when she tried to push it the opposite way it took all her strength! A golf ball tossed straight up fell inches to one side! These aberrations were due to the magnetic pull of the vortex of electrons, according to Litster, who says the House of Mystery puzzle is based on the same principle as a vortex. I looked up that word “vortex” as soon as I back, and I guess I’d better put down what

the dictionary, It was: “1. A mass of fluid, especially of a liquid, having a whirling or circular motion tending to form a cavity or vacuum in the center of the circle, and to draw toward this bodies subject to its action. 2. A supposed collection of particles of very subtle matter endowed with a rapid rotary motion around an axis which was also the axis of a sun or a planet. Descartes attempted to account for the formation of the universe, and the movements of the bodies composing it, by a theory of vortexes.”

That same golf ball, put on the floor, began rolling uphill! And it was uphill: any customer who doubted that could check it with a level.

A girl, on instructions from the guide, was told to back slowly up into a corner. She did so, but couldn’t control her momentum; she suddenly felt herself “fall up,” and slammed noisily against the wall!

At one place there were two poles marked off in inches. On one, a man’s height would be six feet, say, but on the other, only a few feet away, there would be a difference of an inch, and sometimes more!

A plumb line was suspended from the branch of a tree. Normally the bob and cord would hang straight down—but when we stood in back of it with the bob between our feet, the cord passed nearly in front of one ear!

I learned that many years ago the Indians regarded the area of the Vortex as a place of evil spirits. It is said that horses shied when they neared the place. The House of Mystery was erected as an assay office when the white man first came that way in search of gold, and its present owner, John Litster, claims he discovered the oddities of the area some 17 years ago and now stars them in a roadside sideshow to finance his study of the region.

I must say that the place seems a very profitable attraction, and I also must say that Litster was very friendly and cooperative.

These, then, are the highlights of the story. You see the pictures, just as my camera caught them.

To me, the House of Mystery is still a mystery. I’m not enough of a physicist to understand just what this vortex force is. I bought Litster’s “Notes and Data” booklet on it, but I bet Einstein himself couldn’t make head or tail of that.

The Editors of MI smile whenever I tell how wonderful everything was, and when I ask why, they smile even more—but they won’t tell me a thing. Maybe they’re putting on an act, but I don’t know. I was there. I saw these things. What can account for what happens?

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A Hundred Miles of Cookies Every Day

USING complicated machines, modern bakeries turn out millions of cookies every day to satisfy the American sweet tooth.

MUCH has been said of quantity production, and in the public mind the term usually is associated with motor car assembling. But the process of continuous manufacture was in use in other industries long before the automobile achieved its remarkable popularity.

Among the interesting and romantic if not so widely advertised industries utilizing the continuous process of production is the manufacture of table dainties for everyday consumption, such as cookies and other pastries. These factories also have their miles of conveyor belts which pick up raw materials at one end of the plant, receive added ingredients as they pass certain stages, and finally emerge a completed product.

Cookies are one of the leading products of the pastry and confectionery industry. They may be said to be an American institution, in that the United States leads all other nations in their manufacture and sale.

The bulk of ingredients that go into a modern cookie plant and the number of individual articles that come out in a finished stage offer a computation in mathematics. In many cities there are factories that produce hundreds of miles of cookies every week. A production of 100,000 cookies a day requires about 125 sacks of flour, 7,000 pounds of sugar, 500 gallons of pure, fresh milk; 500 pounds of butter, 9,000 dozen eggs, 3,000 pounds of shortening and 2,400 pounds of fruits.

The huge batches of ingredients go into giant electrically driven mixing bowls armed with paddle agitators which work up the dough. When the mixture Is ready, it is cut into shape and delivered to an endless belt which carries the dough through the ovens into the shipping room.

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House Shaped Like Elephant
A HOUSE built in the shape of an elephant is located at Margate City, N. J. Erected in 1882 by James V. Lafferty, the novel home is said to be the only one of its kind. The body is 38 feet long, the circumference, 80 feet. The head is 26 feet long and 48 feet around. Legs are 22 feet long with a diameter of 10 feet. Glass eyes have an 18-inch diameter.

Plastic Bathtub is a great time saver, says Dolly Down, nightclub singer, above. You can sun-bathe and water-bathe at the same time. She’s shown here atop a Miami hotel.

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The House of a Thousand Servants

WHAT might be called the most unusual house in America is the home of O. H. Caldwell, of Cos Cob, Connecticut. Mr. Caldwell is a noted electrical engineer and the former Federal Radio Commissioner. This house has over a thousand servants and yet has no servant problem, for all of the servants are electrical gadgets of one kind or another that do all the work.

Merely open the gate of this house and the building is flooded with light, inside and outside. At the flash of an automobile headlight the garage doors open automatically and the interior lights up. In summer the cool water from two deep wells is circulated through the steam pipes, thus cooling the house.

Ten radio stations sets situated in different parts of the house, all controlled by time clocks, are there to amuse you, and after you retire the radio will continue to play until you are asleep and then will automatically shut itself off.

The furnace is stoked by electricity, and there are over 100 outlets in the house for electric heaters, fans, piano, cleaning and laundry equipment, heated blankets, etc. The kitchen has 26 places to use electricity and one machine alone has over 150 uses. All of the cooking, heating and preparation of food is done by electricity.

New for the Home

Springless Mattress, dreamed up by a Swedish inventor, is light, bouncy as innerspring types. It’s been tested for durability, is said to have orthopedic values. Secret is the core of air-filled plastic. Susquehanna Mills, N. Y. C.

Range-Refrigerator, all in one, is a dollar and space-saver for small apartments. This one features a four cubic-foot electric refrigerator, gas cooking top. All-electric models also are available. General Air Conditioning Corp., Los Angeles.

Damp-Champ Super takes the backache out of laundry days. The plastic bag holds two machine loads of wash, leaves hands free. For dampening clothes evenly, just add some water and seal bag. Humphrey-Callander, Clinton, Ill.

Orange Peeler does a neat job of undressing citrus fruit. First, you cut a groove around the center. Second, you reverse the plastic gadget and use the curved blade to work the peel loose, as shown. Dillon-Beck Mfg. Co., Hillside, N. J.

Bureau-Shaped Building Houses Bureau of Information
AS a novel means of advertising their town’s chief industry, the manufacture of furniture, the local Chamber of Commerce of High Point, N.C, has erected a building resembling a huge bureau to house its headquarters. The novelty of the structure lies in the sign on the mirror, for the building is actually a bureau—a bureau of information. This unique building was erected by popular subscription and is located in the heart of the town.

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One Man’s Castle

SIMON BINDER’S home is literally his castle. The 60-year-old wood-carver spent 11 painstaking years and countless thousands of hours remodeling the main floor of his two-and-a-half story Vancouver, B. C, home in 17th century baroque style. Every stick of furniture was fashioned by Binder, as were the ornate ceiling frescoes, simulated marble drapes, graceful wooden arches and the fireplace of raised flowery designs in this unique house.

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New Wiring Idea May Make the All-Electric House Come True

Spread out in the photographs above are symbols of what electrical engineers see as a revolution in home wiring. They show what can, in an ideally wired house, be done with a new type of electrical control. It’s called remote control, or relay switching.

The young housewife is showing how, from a single bedside panel with remote control switches, she can turn on the percolator in the kitchen, turn radios on or off, light up a flood lamp in the yard for a late-homecoming husband.

With the same system, she can even control the electric dishwasher and toaster. In fact, the new system makes it possible to control every light and electrical outlet in and around a house from one single point. Alternatively, it allows a home owner to have a multitude of control points for much-used outlets, providing a new high in the convenient use of household electricity. Best of all, such a system can be installed in a new or old house at only a fraction of what it would cost with conventional wiring. Just what it can mean to home owners, how it works and how much it costs are discussed in detail on the following two pages.

Remote-control system uses light, cheap wire, eliminates fire hazard The principle of remote control, or relay switching, has long been known to electrical engineers who have used it in various commercial and industrial plants. But only in recent months has it been applied to home wiring. The equipment is now made by three companies: Touch-Plate, Square D, and General Electric. This year more than 10,000 homes, mostly on the Pacific Coast, will be fitted with remote-control systems, and the idea is rapidly becoming popular in other parts of the United States.

The heart of a remote-control home wiring installation is a midget electrical relay, shown above on next page. This relay, installed in the junction box at any electrical outlet, does the actual job of turning the current at the outlet on and off. The relay in turn is operated by a small, neat wall switch that controls 24-volt power from a transformer similar to the kind often used for supplying current to doorbells and also to furnace thermostats.

The immediate question that comes to mind, unless you’re an electrical engineer, is, “Why is 24 volts better than 110.?” The answer to that also shows how a remote control system can do more for the money.

According to the National Electrical Code, 110-volt house wiring must be done with heavy, metal-sheathed cable, known to electricians as BX cable, or simply BX (upper wire in photograph above). This is because a short circuit in a 110-volt house circuit can cause sparks that can easily set your house on fire. So the wires carrying this current must be protected against anything that could damage their insulation and cause two conductors to come together and cause a short circuit.

However, if you reduce the voltage to 25 or below, and provide some method of preventing too much current from flowing through the wires, a short circuit will do no more damage than putting the circuit out of commission. All of tin three systems discussed lure operate on 24 volts and are limited to three amperes or less of current, so they are perfectly safe. Because there is no fire hazard, much smaller, cheaper wire (also shown above) can be used to carry this 24-volt power. Another important element is that the chances of getting 110 volts of house current through your body, with possibly fatal results, can be eliminated. Twenty-four volts at low amperage won’t do you any harm.

A Comparison Let’s compare a conventional wiring job with a specific remote control job, to see what are the important differences between the two.

Suppose your garage is a long distance from the back door of your house, and you have a floodlight outside the back door to light the path. For convenience you should be able to turn this light on or off from either the garage or the house. If you use a 110-volt circuit for this set-up, and no relays, it means you must run wires in expensive BX cable from the house all the way to the garage and back again. But with relay switching, the BX stops at the light socket. The cable to the garage is inexpensive two or three conductor, small-gauge wire.

Of course, for just one installation, such as described above, you would save money by sticking to the standard 110-volt system, because you would have to buy a transformer to operate your low-voltage control circuit. But one transformer will handle all the control circuits needed in an average house, so this cost (about $5) when applied against the saving in having most of your house wired with 24-volt wires, instead of BX, is insignificant.

You can’t get away from BX altogether because, as noted above, it must still run from your fuse box to each outlet in the house. But it stops there. All circuits from outlets to switches can be made with the low-cost 24-volt wire.

Naturally, this results in a saving where a house is wired for utmost convenience. Therein lies the real value of remote control. It provides a means of getting the maximum ease and comfort out of the wiring in your home.

Even the manufacturers of the remote control systems, however, don’t claim that they should be used everywhere. In building a house where economy is the paramount factor, for example, it would be cheaper to use conventional wiring, and have only one, or at most two switches for each outlet, and to have these switches located as close as possible to the outlets.

With remote control—because switches can be wired in parallel—you can have literally as many switches for a single outlet as you wish. And the minute you get above two switches for a single outlet, you begin saving money as well as getting more convenience.

What are the differences between the three systems now available? Biggest difference is between Touch-Plate and the two others. Touch-Plate uses a pushbutton type of switch—one push turns a light on, the next turns it off. This means that if your switch controls a light you can’t see—such as a basement light controlled from an upstairs hallway—you may not know whether a push on the switch is turning the light on or off. Both GE and Square D use two-position switches, marked to indicate which position turns the light on and which turns it off.

Slight Difference Beyond that all three systems differ only in minor details such as methods of mounting relays or connecting them to leads in various circuits.

* Because of the low voltage, home owners who want to do some wiring on their own and who know the principles can install remote control systems in houses already wired for 110 volts without violating most insurance or local building codes. However, experienced electricians point out that it is not as simple as it sounds. The difficulties of working with low voltage come from the fact that “trouble shooting” is more complicated, and any system that gets out of order, or is improperly wired in the first place, may prove a real headache, even to a practiced electrician.

Hydraulic Control OPENS Garage Door

OPERATED from ordinary water pipes with pressure furnished by a simple pipe attachment, an inexpensive new device for opening and closing garage doors from the driver’s seat of the automobile proves a great convenience to motorists. It will open or close, lock or unlock garage doors without the driver’s leaving the machine.

A simple and easily-handled hydraulic device, consisting of two valves, one valve with lock and key, is placed in a convenient location on the edge of the driveway where it is within easy reach of the driver’s arm. The other valve is placed inside the garage. Either valve opens and closes the doors.

Latest in Homes Has Skyscraper Frame and Glass Walls

CUBICAL in construction and designed to build for $2500 or less, the model house shown in the photo at the left has just been completed in Syosset, Long Island. It is intended to serve the needs of families whose income is $1800 a year or less.

Simple modernistic lines, with no fancy and expensive curlicues, characterize the design. Steel is used for the framework, giving it the durability of a skyscraper skeleton. Much glass is used to admit plenty of light.

A garage is on the first floor, with laundry rooms adjoining, and a porch alongside, open to the outdoors. The second floor has a living room, dining room, kitchenette, and one bed room. The third floor has two bed rooms and a closet, in addition to a large sunny terrace open to the sky for the children’s playground.

A small furnace for heating is also installed at the rear of the garage, and practically all the usual home conveniences are provided at a minimum of expense and slight costs of repair and upkeep.

Combination Stool and Dryer Saves Steps for Housewife

AN EXTREMELY convenient and serviceable device to have around the kitchen or wash house is the combination clothes dryer and kitchen stool, shown at the right. It serves ordinarily as a stool, but when it is desired to utilize it as dryer, the metal rods are pulled up through the holes in the seat and locked in place so that they stand out horizontally. When not in use the rods in no way interfere with the comfort of the seat.

The stool is made of metal, with a wide spread of the legs to prevent tipping. Many tiresome steps can be saved by the use of this stool-dryer, and much-needed space can often be conserved.

Lamp Shade in Football Motif
SOMETHING distinctly unique in the way of desk lamps was introduced at a University of Southern California sorority house. The shade was cut from parchment and made to resemble a football helmet, while the upright, cast in metal, forms a football. The lamp attracted wide attention and gave a sportive air to the room which it decorated.

Ash Tray Breathes and inhales the smoke that usually drifts over into a non-smoker’s eye. It draws all smoke down into the stand and keeps the room free of fumes, too. Penny Martin, of Los Angeles, is shown using this new and welcome invention. It operates electrically, uses house current.

James Liddy’s Bedsprings

By Alfred Lief

ONE day in 1853 James E. Liddy, a carriage maker’s blacksmith, drove his wife into Watertown, N. Y., in their buggy. They were newlyweds. Young Liddy was rather irked, waiting in the seat so long. He fidgeted and bounced on the coil-spring cushion seat—then suddenly his expression changed.

He thought how comfortable it would be to sleep on springs. He would get rid of those cross ropes that were tied to his bed frame as a support for the straw and feather ticks and use cushion coil.

Liddy took measurements and sawed six slats the length of his bed. In the carriage shop he fastened six open coils to each slat, spacing them for even distribution of weight. Here it was; the first bedspring. Mr. and Mrs. Liddy—if not George Washington—slept there.

Before James Liddy went to his eternal rest in 1921 at 93, many improvements had been made and a new industry organized. Production had passed from carriage makers to mattress manufacturers. So-called bed-bottoms appeared on the market with resilient lengthwise slats on top of crosswise rows of coils; others with a woven wire net enclosing the coils; still others with double decks of coils.

According to the latest census figures, the annual volume of U. S. sales for bed-springs totals $103,664,000 wholesale. This means in 1951 more than 3,000,000 box springs were sold, more than 2,000,000 coil springs and 500,000 flat springs.

Liddy never patented his idea nor is there any evidence that he undertook manufacturing but the National Association of Bedding Manufacturers is very grateful to him. Its president journeyed to Water-town for a centennial celebration this year and gave the county historical society a miniature model of Liddy’s creation. The brass plate attached to it bespeaks James E. Liddy’s “great contribution to better rest.” His fame is secure because he benefited mankind. He, too, can rest easy. *

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CITY WITHIN A CITY

Equal in size to ten 10-story buildings, New York’s Interstate Commerce Center will have an Indoor highway.

THEY gasped when Tom Mix rode his horse right through the swinging doors and into .a western saloon. They laughed when Olsen and Johnson drove a midget car into the elevator of a modern building and then through the halls to a lawyer’s office. (In Hollywood, anything can happen.) But within a few months, New Yorkers will see the start of a building which, when finished, will swallow whole fleets of large trucks, trailers, and cars—said vehicles calmly driving into the building and thence upward on a spiral, four-lane indoor highway to whatever floor their business is on.

This unique “in-building highway,” 32 feet wide and three-quarters of a mile long, and rising at a grade of only 6%, will be one of the outstanding features of the proposed Interstate Commerce Center building to be constructed by the Tishman Realty and Construction Company of New York. Thirteen stories high and covering an area of four square blocks strategically located on the threshold of the world’s commercial marts and routes on lower Manhattan, the new building will be a revolutionary step in architectural design aimed at helping industry meet the inevitable changes and expansions of the postwar industrial era.

“Industry,” observes David Tishman, President of the Tishman Realty and Construction Company, “is now confronted with a problem never before encountered—a problem that will necessitate drastic changes and improvements in business procedure. There are the tremendous potentialities of domestic and foreign markets; accumulated demands for new and replacement goods; an enormous expansion in aggregate buying power; revised distribution methods; and a labor supply far greater than that of the last prewar year.

“It is to coordinate this unprecedented demand, increase efficiency of operation in all branches of business and thus bring about lowered production and distribution costs, that the Interstate Commerce Center was designed.”

The $15,000,000 building, which will be larger than the Port of New York Authority Building and second only to Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, will be a veritable “city within a city,” housing not only industries but also restaurants, beauty parlors, barber shops, and retail stores for the 25,000 persons expected to work there. Each organization, leasing one or more floors, will have its own private entrance on the street floor leading to a private lobby with accommodations for reception clerks and switchboard personnel. Each firm will have its own private express passenger elevators, operated by a single button and stopping only at its own floor. Each floor will provide its tenant with over four acres of operating capacity, an area equal to the total floor space of a ten-story building of 100×175 feet. This tremendous area will permit the centralization on a single floor of all branches of a great organization: executive, production, merchandising, and shipping.

But, when it comes to the most amazing feature of the “Center,” the “in-building highway” will cop all honors. Its gentle 6% grade will permit trucks and trailers of maximum size to drive up at high speeds directly to loading platforms on any of the thirteen floors. Sidewalk deliveries, loading and unloading of freight into elevators, traffic-congested streets, jangled nerves and dented fenders will be a thing of the past, because each floor will have adequate loading space and facilities to accommodate at least twenty large trailer trucks. Loading and unloading these trucks will take place at these indoor platforms with a maximum of comfort, night and day, rain or shine.

Eye-Stopper of the Month

We’ve been getting a lot of complaints lately, especially from parents. “When are you going to publish an Eye-Stopper who isn’t clad in a skimpy bikini?” they ask. Well here she is, gracefully demonstrating American Standard’s new Ultra Bath. The oval “bathing pool” measures 5 feet long by 42 inches wide and 16 inches deep. Our water sprite is fiddling with the automatic water level and temperature Control Console. Or maybe she’s starting up the built-in whirlpool bath jets. Just out of the photo (but who cares?) is the Deluxe Shower Tower with its twin shower heads, one for washing all of you and the other for the neck down. Available through civilized plumbers everywhere.

Photo Wallpaper
THROW out that wallpaper! Away with plaster! Your home may now have magnificent new walls—walls covered seemingly with rare and beautiful materials such as hare-wood, woven rattan, marble, even snakeskin—all practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

The Di-Noc Company of Cleveland makes it possible. Using a record-sized camera they take color shots of the material to be reproduced, etch the exposures so obtained on copper plates, and use the plates for printing by the gravure process on an extremely thin paperbacked film. Film with backing is transferred in large areas to any flat surface and the backing stripped away.

Greenhouse Goes Modern

WHAT is considered as the last word in green houses recently has been completed in St. Louis at a $120,000 cost. Unlike the average greenhouse of today, the roof is practically hail proof, the top being made of an unbreakable composition.

The glass panels are made up of 24 by 26-inch panes covering 15,000 square feet, and are fastened in place with copper glazing strips.

Ketchup Pump-It
MR. D. F. Bachellor of Glendale, Calif, had an extremely active mind and when a major operation confined him to a hospital bed for a long period of convalescence, he kept right on thinking. One day a visitor mentioned how much better the world would be if someone would invent a device to get ketchup from a bottle without pounding and thumping. Bachellor weighed the problem. “Why thump it when you can pump it?” he thought. There was the solution. He worked out the plans and when he left the hospital he made one pump after the other until he found the perfect answer. The first million Pump-Its have already been sold and the second are disappearing rapidly. For bringing happiness to ketchup-eaters everywhere, Mr. Bachellor will receive Mi’s $50.

Prefabricated House For Defense Needs
THIS radical-looking prefabricated house is one of the many types which have’ been submitted to the Division of Defense Housing Coordination as a quick, cheap method of housing defense workers. The house weighs only a ton, and can be constructed in six days by one man. At the right is an interior view of the novel “defense” house.

Dishwasher Aids Housewife
AN ELECTRIC dishwashing machine which uses six quarts of water, cleans all the dishes in the machine in eight minutes. Taking up but little room in kitchen, the mechanism is simple enough to be operated by a child. The dishes are placed in a basket which in turn is placed in the machine. The basket is self-locking, and stationary during the washing operation, thus eliminating all chance of dish breakage. An agitator with four blades revolves around the perforated basket, forcing the water upward between and over the dishes. The water strikes the dishes at all angles, doing a thorough and sanitary job.

Cob Tongs Provide Sanitary Method for Holding Corn

These novel tongs provide a sanitary means of holding hot roasting ears. Made of stainless steel, they permit the ear to be grasped securing without the fingers touching the corn. Claws on the ends of the tongs are shaped in “fish hook” manner so that the corn cannot possibly slip.

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The House That Death Built

by Dean S. Jennings

DEAD leaves, whipped from stark lonely trees by the valley wind, sing a dirge in the night glow of a winter’s moon.

Behind the skeleton screen of withered oaks whose rotting limbs droop to pungent ground, you can see the house, gabled and gaunt, rising wraith-like against a blue shadowed mountain backdrop.

They call it the “mystery house,” and “the house that death built” or “ghost house.”

It’s the strangest structure in the world, a rambling labyrinth of 160 rooms, a $5,000,000 mass of wood and masonry set down in the heart of the peaceful Santa Clara Valley in California. Its mahogany halls have been empty these many years, its dusty rooms hollow and sad.

But there was a time when hammers pounded and saws whined; when a wrinkled old woman, listening to the commands of ghostly whispering voices, shuffled through the house and gave orders to workmen which resulted in blind stairways, chimneys without stoves, closet doors with closets, pillars upside down and many other peculiar things.

“You will live,” the voices had told her decades before, “only as long as it takes to build your house. When hammers are quiet, then death will come.”

Frantic, desperate, the woman summoned an army of workmen, drove them to ceaseless toil with her bulging purse. For 38 years they labored and the house grew, like some monstrous tumor, spreading octopus-like over the estate. And it was still unfinished when death snatched her away.

Today, the house once more echoes to soft footsteps, the voices of unseen beings chatter in ancient rooms, and they say the spirits—which fled when the old woman died—have returned once more.

Before I take you through this nightmare of architecture, let’s turn the calendar back for a moment. . . .

In New Haven, Connecticut, William Wert Winchester, scion of the famous rifle manufacturing family, was building a new home for his lovely wife, Sarah, and their baby daughter. Just as the house was finished, the sinister shadow over the family made its first appearance. Winchester and the baby girl died suddenly and Mrs. Winchester, stunned by the tragedy, fell into a coma so serious that physicians despaired of her life.

Finally she recovered and, at a friend’s suggestion, visited a medium. During a seance, according to those familiar with her story, she received a communication from her dead husband in which he said: “Sarah dear, if our house had not been finished, I would still be with you. I urge you now to build a home, but never let it be finished, for then you will live. . . .”

Fearful of electric storms so common in the East, the young widow hurried to California, bought 160 acres of land and an eight-room house. There, hiding herself from the world, she began the incredible task which led to the creation of what is now known as “The Winchester Mystery House.”

Mrs. Winchester’s income was $1,000 a day. Most of it was spent on salaries to workmen, on carloads of building materials from every corner of the world, rare woods, exquisite marble, costly glass, fixtures— many of which were never used and still repose in storage rooms. Beautiful floors were inlaid one week, ripped out the next. There were many servants, but only one ever came in contact with the eccentric widow. In fact, when the late Theodore Roosevelt visited California, officials in San Jose called on Mrs. Winchester.

“The President of the United States is anxious to meet you and visit your home,” they said excitedly.

The woman, peering through the front door of her mansion, shook her head.

“I have never bothered anyone,” she said acidly, “I expect no one to bother me. Good day!”

Ignoring the pleas of the officials, Mrs. Winchester walked slowly back to her “blue” room, the tiny bare chamber where, in the dark hours of the night, she communed with invisible friends.

Sarah Winchester, cloistered in supreme loneliness, died on September 5, 1922. The builders gathered up their tools, the great rambling structure gathered dust and age. But she left an astonishing heritage which, in summary form, looks like this: 160 rooms.

13 bathrooms.

47 fireplaces.

Thousands of windows and doors.

Five Tiffany windows costing $1,000 each.

A front door worth $2,000.

3 elevators.

40 stairways.

5 separate heating systems.

9 kitchens.

Transparent floors, screens on inside doors, doorknobs and fixtures of gold, silver and bronze.

One has the macabre realization that these rooms were made for spirit guests; that no human being was ever destined to sleep in the bedrooms of dazzling beauty, or^sit down in any of the vast reception rooms, whose walls are covered with embossed wall paper studded with bits of crystal.

Sarah Winchester had a weakness for the number thirteen. All the stairways are constructed in series of 13 steps, walls have 13 panels, glass doors have 13 pieces, chandeliers have 13 lights. On one chandelier, having no room for a thirteenth light, Mrs. Winchester punched a hole in the gold conduit pipe and fastened therein a plain iron gas jet.

You can find dozens of closet doors that open on blank walls, stairways that end in mid-air, trap doors, blind chimneys, secret passages, screens placed on blank walls, doors with knobs on only one side. The house was so arranged that carriages or automobiles could be driven inside, with no prying eyes able to watch the silent widow step out.

The mansion is indeed a remarkable feat of the builders’ art. For, although few of the rooms are on a level with one another, the structure stands solidly, rising to a maximum height of five stories in spots, stretching out like a village in others.

Sarah Winchester’s burning zeal to “keep building” is reflected everywhere, particularly in one stairway, with 44 steps 2 inches high and seven turns in a total rise of only ten feet.

If you were taken to the center of the house and left there alone, it might easily take a day to find the way out.

Today, with Sarah Winchester but a memory, with the age-browned halls and rooms deserted shells of once busy hours, strange phenomena have aroused the countryside to a furore of gossip. The spirits, which must have followed the old woman to her marble tomb in New Haven, are once more flitting through the labyrinth . . .

Weird rappings filter down from above to the caretaker’s room on the ground floor. Footsteps, soft, gentle, come and go through the night in padding cadence. Sibilant whispers, they say, swirl around your ears . . .

A woman who went through the house recently, said in hushed awe: “Someone—some unseen guide—was at my side as I walked into Mrs. Winchester’s room. Another time, I felt a gentle pressure on my arm. Superstitious? Not a bit. But I can’t understand it. I could feel this invisible thing in every room.”

Many other recent visitors have reported similar puzzling experiences, paralleling familiar psychic demonstrations in other parts of the world.

The late Harry Houdini, prince of magicians, went through the mansion in the dead of night some years ago but gave out no public impression of his visit. He had planned, however, to return and spend a week within its mystic walls.

Has Sarah Winchester come “home”?

What does it mean—the unearthly tramp-tramp of unseen feet, the eerie cry of voices from shadowy, cobwebbed eaves?

Who knows?

The dead leaves fall, the lonely trees bend to the wind, the blue mountain gazes down sphinxlike on the house where Sarah Winchester looked alone at her soul . . .

TENT CITY ON HOTEL ROOF IN SAN DIEGO, CALIF.
An unusual method of coining dollars from the waste space on the roof of a building is shown in this view of the U. S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, where about twenty tents have been pitched far above the city. The view is fine, the air good, and as the elevator and other hotel service is at hand, the guests enjoy camp life and city advantages together. The proprietor receives a good rate for these quarters, so that the novel idea is beneficial all around.

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PLAYGROUNDS IN THE SKY

Here is MI’s hold plan to fight juvenile delinquency and get kids off the street.

THE scene is your city on a sticky, sweltering twilight in midsummer. Lights are beginning to wink on and kids are starting to gather in the streets after the evening meal.

A few years ago this was the danger hour in your city. You remember it well—the nightly muggings would begin about now and young girls would be afraid to venture out alone. Beatings were commonplace and gang wars, fiercely fought with knives and zip-guns, were a frequent occurrence. But things are different now.

Look at the kids emerging from their homes. Instead of congregating at the candy store and pool parlor hatching * up new forms of violence out of boredom, they are now heading for the center of the block. They funnel into a large entrance and are swallowed up inside.

Follow them. They tile into elevators and are whisked upstairs. The doors open and they step into a fantasy land.

There, a few yards from the tenements where they live, on their very roofs, in fact, is a regulation-size baseball diamond with real springy turf! But the kids aren’t interested just now—they played ball all afternoon. Instead, they enter the locker room and in a few minutes are cavorting noisily in a big, broad and very cool swimming pool. Afterwards, they troop onto the ball field, where chairs have been set up, and watch a movie under the stars.

What’s it all about? “This magic land for kids doesn’t exist in my city,” you say. No, it doesn’t—yet!

But it darn well could! It could exist in your town and in hundreds of other communities throughout the nation. Every city could construct huge, all-encompassing playgrounds and recreation centers, using the enormous, readily available space now going completely to waste on the rooftops of their congested areas!

The erection of these play centers on the nation’s rooftops is Mi’s plan to counterattack juvenile delinquency. Granted, it’s a bold, dramatic proposition. It might also, at first glance, border on the impossible. Immense and breath-taking, yes—but impossible? We don’t think so at all.

Does the idea intrigue you? It should because teen-age terrorism is costing you many hundreds of additional tax dollars every year, not to mention the hours of worry for the safety of self, family and property.

Already a million youngsters get into trouble with the police every year. The Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee has just made the startling prediction in a report that by 1960 the figure will skyrocket to 2,250,000!

Listen again to the authorities: “If communities throughout the nation provided more wholesome recreational facilities for their young people, delinquency could be curtailed.” This comes from FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and his conviction that recreation is a big answer is echoed by judges, child guidance experts and police officials from coast to coast.

MI believes the obvious solution is in rooftop playgrounds. No miracles of engineering are needed. Technically, with the know-how we possess right now, no insurmountable problem exists. Declares Henry Kohler, a prominent New York architect who is editor of the Bulletin of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Institute of Architects: “Certainly it can be done. Even though roofs are of different heights, even though some buildings are narrower than others, there is no limit to the size of the playground which can be built. You can build a gym up there or you can construct a center big enough for a baseball field, grandstand included!”

Mr. Kohler, who spent four years with the Seabees designing athletic areas of all types for military personnel in the South Pacific, points out that a 200×250-foot center would be ample to contain all the necessary facilities.

The floor would be a reinforced concrete slab built up from the highest level. Let’s explain: Suppose the site selected consists of five apartment houses—three of them five stories high, two only four stories high. From the top height of five stories, steel supports could be spanned horizontally, meeting similar supports which come up vertically from the lower height of four stories. The reinforced concrete floor is then constructed upon these supports.

The concrete slab would contain radiant heating units for two major reasons: this is the best way of heating a large area and no other plumbing for heating purposes would be necessary. And there is a third reason which the teen-agers would say leads all the rest: In the winter a refrigerant such as freon could be put into the tubing. This would freeze water and the kids would have themselves a fine skating rink.

Now suppose the roof area of the five apartment houses is too small—suppose the entire area just doesn’t add up to a 200×250 playground. Have we met an impasse? Not at all, says Mr. Kohler. The answer: Cantilever out. This means that horizontal supports are extended outward from the edge of the roof and cantilever supports are introduced from the sides of the building.

When the dust of construction work clears away, what will the finished product be like?

There would be a baseball field for the playing area. Wooden flooring could be applied in sections over the turf and in a short time the baseball diamond could be transformed into a basketball court, a floor for a track meet or a dance floor. Along the sides removable stands could accommodate hundreds of spectators for neighborhood tournament games.

There would be a swimming pool, showers, locker rooms and even a solarium. There could easily be an ice skating rink in winter, as previously explained, tennis and handball courts, a raised stage for amateur theatricals, ping-pong, shuffleboard and gymnasium equipment.

Off to the sides, behind huge folding doors, there could be separate, smaller rooms. These would be studios for arts and crafts, painting, sculpture, photography, music and rehearsals. There could be a wood and metal working shop, a library and study rooms.

The total cost for a playground like this? An estimated $1,000,000, and a bargain at the price.

There would be some problems to surmount, of course. Legal questions, such as liability in case of accidental injury, would have to be straightened out in advance. Zoning problems would have to be handled. Code requirements of the local departments of housing and buildings would have to be met. Money must be raised.

Recently, four reform school teeners appeared before a youth forum in New York and, sitting behind a screen to protect their identities, advised their elders on how to deal with kids. Their unanimous conclusion: More young people would stay out of trouble if they were loved by their parents and “had decent l and interesting places to play after school.”

Anyone who has ever had a taste of the misery, degradation and boredom of an alley adolescence can testify that this is a realistic suggestion. The clincher came when the New York State Attorney General told the youths that their suggestion was the same as that offered by a panel of social workers and public officials not long before at a hearing on the problems of juvenile delinquency.

How about it? Had a bellyful of terror in your city’s streets? Then why not give rooftop playgrounds some long and serious thought? •